“When we are advocates in a bad cause, pleading for any impious, unjustifiable act; when we baptize sin with the name of religion, and with our oratory wash the devil’s face, this is to be servants of men” (Thomas Watson, as quoted in Hughes, Expository Preaching With Word Pictures, p. 213).
To Curvet and Simper in the Pulpit
The sodomy challenge — and all related sexuality challenges — present us with a glorious opportunity. It is a glorious opportunity that the Spirit has cleverly disguised as a real hazard to our future comfort and well-being. For the gospel is a troublemaker. Let me explain that first and then come back to the sodomy …
Earning Respect Through Being Opaque
[The minister must be] “a plain preacher, suiting his matter and style to the capacity of his audience (1 Cor. 14:19). Some ministers, like eagles, love to soar aloft in abstruse metaphysical notions, thinking they are most admired when they are least understood. They who preach in the clouds, instead of hitting their people’s conscience, …
Because Most Word Pictures Don’t Even Have Hands
“Do not try to hold your word pictures by the hand. Put them out there and let them do their work” (Hughes, Expository Preaching With Word Pictures, p. 146).
Assumed With Authority
“Yet in preaching we need not act as if everything had to be proved. Some things cannot be proved; some do not need to be, and others have been sufficiently proved before, and should now be taken for granted” (Broadus, Preparation and Delivery, p. 160).
And Should Therefore Be Ransacked
“The wisdom literature contains the largest yields of metaphor and simile found anywhere in the Bible” (Hughes, Expository Preaching With Word Pictures, p. 115).
In the Real Thing
“Men delight in argument — not in its forms, but in its reality. You will see a light in the faces of unlettered rustics, when an argument drawn from matters within their range of thought or suited to their taste, is presented in terms so plain, so vigorous, so interesting, that they take hold of …
With Cudgels
“Exhortation, without implementation, can soon become a verbal beating” (Hughes, Expository Preaching With Word Pictures, p. 112)
Because I Am Important?
“Yet why preach sixty minutes of exegetical data if your audience cannot understand most of what you are saying” (Hughes, Exegetical Preaching With Word Pictures, p. 77).
But Words Are More Than a Flatbed
“The aversion some have to homiletics, I have discovered, is only a symptom of a bigger issue. The basis of their aversion is that they are convinced that the content of the sermon is far more important than the method of delivery. For some it is all important — so important that it does not …